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Photos of your computers from the 70s/80s/90s - Post Them Here!

MindThreat

Experienced Member
Joined
Apr 28, 2016
Messages
134
Location
U.S.A.
I have one from the 90s but I'll have to find it to post it. Would love to see some pictures from others and their computers/setups throughout the years in the past. Looking forward to seeing some!
 
Do you mean photo from that time period? Here is a picture of part of my "vintage" computer collection from the late 90's, or at that time known as "worthless junk".
Image4.jpg
 
Always wanted a Zenith and almost had a 386 model at once...(sigh). Still love how the earlier systems have the turbo button, lock/key, speed display, etc! Thanks for sharing!
 
My late-80s setup:

PC XT clone
Amiga 500
Atari 520STfm
Atari 2600 (under the fish tank)

Dot-matrix printer
Casio MT-240 MIDI keyboard
tons of floppies
rotary telephone
2400 baud modem
dirty fish tank
Atari SC1224 monitor
Composite monitor, monochrome amber
Boombox for sound

[shamelessly copied from my 2009 post on AtariAge]


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I have two CGA TVM monitors, and had the EGA version back in the day. Must've been popular in NZ. Only monitors I've used with fans in them.

Unfortunately I have no photos from back then to share really, I should dig through some photo albums.
 
My late-80s setup:

PC XT clone
Amiga 500
Atari 520STfm
Atari 2600 (under the fish tank)

Dot-matrix printer
Casio MT-240 MIDI keyboard
tons of floppies
rotary telephone
2400 baud modem
dirty fish tank
Atari SC1224 monitor
Composite monitor, monochrome amber
Boombox for sound

[shamelessly copied from my 2009 post on AtariAge]


View attachment 39910

View attachment 39911

Awesome pictures! Is that an Apple logo on the 2600 storage bin? =D Modem is under the monitor? Quite a bit of fun toys!
 
I found a slide of my bedroom in Sydney, Oz, photo taken late 1985. Apple ][ clone with green screen and Microline 92 printer, various junked IBM printers and mechanisms, Univac line printer (I saved it from being dumped by the Uni when they decommissioned their 1108 I think it was), computer manuals and TTL data books, Fairchild F8 in a homemade case, and a computer table made from an IBM 026 card punch, this one in its natual grey colour. Not visible was an Applied Technology S100 machine on the other side of that table. Just behind the camera was a cupboard with an I/O Selectric for use with the F8. Oh, and the Americas Cup bedsheets to celebrate one of Australia's greatest sporting victories :)
My_room_in_1985.jpg
 
I regret in all the years I've had computers I really don't have any of my machines back in the day. I think there may be one my grandmother took of my VIC20 and I back around 1983, but that one is AWOL right now. This is from (judging by haircuts) early 90s. You can just barely make out the back of my 286, and the recent Goldstar (I think it was Goldstar) VGA monitor I bought. I had had 2 years of Herc mono graphics with that beast. One Christmas my grandmother bought a VGA card for it, but sadly no monitor. And man, were those things expensive! Anyway, my Dad eventually felt sorry for me staring at the video card box and helped me out. I'm not sure what's in the background there.. I think either my Dad's old PS/2, or one of the Tandy 1000s I was using to run my bulletin board system.

computer.jpg

Edit: On second thought, I believe that is an Epson Equity our neighbour asked me to fix up for them. I recognize the left corner. That was my first paying gig as an IT person. :)
 
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I no longer have the PS/2 model 95 or the 80 in the foreground. Although I do have another of both. In fact most of the stuff in these images has gone. I still have the Mac II (in the first image I posted) that I have yet to get round to fixing. Its only been 20 years!

More:
(Please don't give me grief for how improperly this stuff is stored, it was 20 years ago. That e-machine, you dumped may be considered vintage in another 10-20 years)

Panning right:
Image7.jpg
A couple of Mac SE's. Under the plastic sheet a Packard Bell laser printer, with a composite monitor on top. Right in the center (it's very hard to see) a rather nice HMV tube radio.

Right again:
Image14.jpg
More general chaos. I just realized, it kinda looks like a bomb site. I still have the PS/2 model 55, the computer below it is an XT clone of some sort. Below that is a nice 286 system and in front of that upside down is another 286. Wish I had kept these. Tucked away under the table, to the right is a COMPAQ 386, that I could have sworn had an MCA bus. I must have been mistaken.

Inside the cupboard:
Image12.jpg Image17.jpg
Various drives, stored very poorly. At the time, though I could have been given 10 times this stuff for free.

I realized that I don't really have many images of computer stuff from back then. It was so different before digital cameras. You tended to only take pictures like these to use up the end of the film. I don't think I have any of my main computers from back then.
 
This is some my goodies :grin:
IMG_0491.jpgIMG_0491.jpgIMG_0406.jpg

Compaq Portable, IBM 5170 and 486DX2/66 clone.
 
Here are just few items from my collection) My 286/20 - nothing special, but I like this machine - took it by train from St.Pete in the September of 2006. Then Kaypro 10, then my first own PC - Digital Starion 300i (ordered from America in 1995) - P1/75, and the laptop from which my retrocomputer collection began - Compaq Contura 430cx - 486DX4-100/16m ram/6gb IDE HDD/1mb VGA/TFT640x480

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Also not mine hardware, but interesting, anyway - A Soviet XT - Iskra 1030.m (Iskra = Spark) And a Amiga 2500 - which was mine, but I sold it in 2012(((

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Back in '85 I had a Compaq Portable and an Epson QX-10. Didn't even have a camera back then. Sold the Epson a few months later.
 
Here are just few items from my collection) My 286/20 - nothing special, but I like this machine - took it by train from St.Pete in the September of 2006. Then Kaypro 10, then my first own PC - Digital Starion 300i (ordered from America in 1995) - P1/75, and the laptop from which my retrocomputer collection began - Compaq Contura 430cx - 486DX4-100/16m ram/6gb IDE HDD/1mb VGA/TFT640x480

View attachment 40796

Nice Case! Our second ever PC used that exact case for our 10Mhz Turbo XT - iirc it had a flip-top design which made opening it up for upgrades super easy. I think ours eventually ended up with a 386 main-board in it. :cool:
 
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